The Parkland school shooting raises questions that have so far not gotten into the public discussion of American gun violence. In particular, it is widely known but largely ignored that most gun related deaths do not occur during school shootings. Such concentrated killings, especially of the young, naturally draw our attention. The less spectacular gun … More Gun Violence: Theirs and Ours
~ ~ ~ Another in the Mad Jubilado series ~ ~ ~ I keep finding myself in conversations of health and illness, as I grow older. The Mad Jubilado experiences by the very course of nature and time more health related situations and conversations than in previous stages of life. In such conversations I have … More The Heart of the Matter: It’s More than Your Doctor May Know
The “Deep State” is deeper than you think. I first ran across the concept when I read an essay by former senior analyst for congress, Mike Lofgren on Bill Moyers’ website, posted in 2014. Lofgren was apparently the first to use the term. He spent many years working for Congress, the last sixteen as a … More The Deeper Deep State
I keep running across obsessively denialist arguments in Face Book groups such as “Climate Change Discussion,” that make claims like, “Green Energy Is Expensive & It Won’t Save The Environment.” They brazenly tout false information, distortions of out-of-date facts, and assumptions that have no factual basis. They seem to reflect no critical thinking ability. Otherwise, … More Politics of Denial, Technology and Reality
Think about all the struggles over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and all the “repeal and replace” negation and obscurantism. Think about Obama’s hopeless attempts to compromise with a racist Congress. Think about the many years during which all the Congress could do was to implement their racist policies of saying NO to anything the … More Bait and Switch: Un-Healthcare Insurance and Impoverished Budgets
Remember the old movie, The Manchurian Candidate? The 1962 political thriller depicted a veteran of the Korean War, who had been brainwashed while a prisoner of war, to assassinate the leading presidential candidate so that the vice-presidential candidate could win the presidency. A secret “palace coup d’état” would then impose a draconian suspension of democracy in … More The Manchurian President and His Great Wall
Just about every Trumpeted nominee for high office has obvious conflicts of interest with upholding the public trust, no less the United States Constitution. At the core of the problem is their basic attitude toward government itself. They furtively frame their intentions in the most patriotic sounding rhetoric they can muster. However, they are corporatists; they … More Kleptocracy Rising: The Short Eventful Life of the Corporate State of Trumplandia
The surge of partisan vitriol over “fake news” during and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election raises some very serious though deeply misunderstood issues. What is news, what is information, what are facts, and what role does propaganda play in the “news cycle” in the various media? Is there a viable role for “fact checkers” … More Fake News: Chicken Little Meets the Canary in the Coal Mine
The violence continues. It seems pervasive. The list is long and diverse. Cops shoot unarmed Black men in every major American city. A lone deranged Air Force veteran kills five Dallas police officers. A disturbed marine Iraq-returnee assassinates three more in Baton Rouge. Suicide bombers turn Brussels, Paris, and Bagdad upside down. A wife-beating suicide … More Reform is not Enough
The irony of the catastrophic crises of our time is that they offer unprecedented opportunity to shape the New Great Transformation of humanity. The alternative is our extinction. … More The Irony of Crisis and Opportunity
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 